you tacky thing

Language Log has a really interesting post up about the second amendment. What caught my eye, though, was the note the author appended to the end:

In particular, please note that the meaning of the Second Amendment is a distinct question from what is good policy. It is quite possible to read the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to possess and carry weapons while believing this to be poor policy, or to read it as protecting only the right of the people to organize militia, while believing that individuals ought to be able to possess and carry weapons.

This strikes me as appallingly obvious, but for some reason, we Americans so frequently refuse to admit that the Constitution might say something we disagree with. I suspect that this is rooted in the myth we pass along to our children from elementary school onward — that the Constitution is a perfect (and perfectly clear) document that lays out our God-given rights. You know, instead of a framework designed by some guys who were ultimately only statesmen doing the best that they could according to their ideals and historical context. And the limitations of natural language.

I’m tempted to say that it’s high time to tackle the underlying issue here — that our founding charter, the rules about the rules we can put in place, ought to be massively rewritten. But rewritten according to whose vision? The Constitution may be vague, but that vagueness allows us to pretend that we all hold the same values. Maybe the fiction of national unity is too important to give up.

A recent exchange with a friend reminded me of this piece, which I wrote for my old blog two years ago.

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Hi, my name is Tacky, and I’m a recovering grammar nazi. (Hi, Tacky.)

It started all the way back in elementary school. I learned to read and write early — before kindergarten, even — and teachers always praised me for the way I spoke and wrote. My sentences were complete and complex from a startlingly young age. My vocabulary was large, varied, precocious. I had little trouble producing the sort of English the adults in my life wanted to hear. Correct English. What they tried to teach other kids, I already knew. When Mr. Stasfurth, my fourth- and fifth-grade teacher, explained to us, “You have to learn the rules of grammar before you can break them,” I swelled with unconcealed pride. I already knew the rules. I was doing English right.

Middle school complicated things. (more…)